


But Not to Me

by tisfan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Jedi Master Tony Stark, Jedi Steve Rogers, M/M, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Multi, Sith Winter Soldier, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-26 00:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14988386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Steve Rogers is on a mission to bring a message to the last Jedi, Tony Stark, who has been hidden away for ten years. The Winter Soldier also has a mission; to stop Steve, and to end the Jedi order for good.Bringing Steve to the dark side would be a powerful accomplishment. But Bucky Barnes, the remnant personality under the Winter Soldier, wants Steve for other, more personal reasons.And part of Bucky still yearns for his old master, his old lover... for the man he used to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gravesecret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravesecret/gifts).



> this AU follows along the path of Rey and Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren, without any of the other plots in the Last Jedi.
> 
> If you have not seen Last Jedi, this fic contains spoilers.
> 
> This fic will post 2 chapters per day between today and Saturday, when the full art will post.
> 
> The art was done by [gravesecret](https://gravesecret.tumblr.com/)

 

__

 

_Ahch-to, sunrise_

Steve threw the landing clasps for the  _Falcon_. DUM-E made a chirping set of noises, rocking back and forth on his wheels, his arm moving around wildly. “Yeah, Tony Stark should be up there,” he told the little droid. He closed his eyes, reached out with that strange energy that was a part of him and felt the heat of the man he was there to find. There was a creeping, blueish color around it, like Stark was probing back, delicately, trying to figure out who Steve was, what he wanted.

DUM-E chirped again.

“No, I don’t think so,” Steve said. “You’re too heavy for me to carry and there’s nothing but hills around here. I don’t know that you’d make it up there. But I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Beooooop!”

“I’m sure he’s missed you, too,” Steve said. He wasn’t sure how he understood the bot. It just seemed whatever DUM-E was trying to say, Steve knew it. Like a gut feeling. Whatever it was, it had been nice. And definitely worth it, watching the stunned expressions on his new friends’ faces. Sam, in particular, had been astonished that Steve managed to communicate with all the bots, including Sam’s own specialty scout-bot, Redwing.

JARVIS had told him that DUM-E had gotten depressed when Stark left them behind, some ten years before, and gone into hiding. That DUM-E had shut down and never come back online. When Steve had declared his intentions of finding the last of the Jedi masters, DUM-E had not only woken up, but he’d had a map, a way to find his creator.

Steve stared out the  _Falcon’s_ front viewscreen.

Ahch-to was green. Rocky and steep, but green. Thick with living things. Animals and insects. The air was full of flying creatures. Steve didn’t know the names of any of the things, or even if they had names. Naming was such a human concept. But he knew they were alive. Dozens of lithe creatures watched him from the trees, curious and a little afraid.

Nothing happened. And more nothing.

Finally, Steve grabbed the light saber he’d taken from Ho Yinsen back on Gulmira. He still didn’t feel comfortable touching it. There were so many bad memories that clung to the hilt, that spilled into Steve’s hands and heart every time his fingers touched the metal. But what else was he going to do? Fury had given him a mission, and he meant to accomplish it. He was the Resistance’s last hope.

Well, technically, Tony Stark was the Resistance’s last hope, but if Steve didn’t get the message to him, how was he supposed to know.

“Beop beeeeep!”

“Yeah, I’m going,” Steve said. He wrapped his cloak around him a little tighter. After the desert planet where he’d grown up, even the temperate climate of Ehch-to seemed a little chilly. And wet. Moisture hung in the air, gathered against his skin until he was sticky with it. He put one booted foot at the bottom of the stone stairs and looked up. The stairs wound around and around the island’s mountain until it reached a ruin way at the top. He would be preferred to land the  _Falcon_ a little closer, but there wasn’t a good spot.

He turned to look at the ship, suddenly worried. What if Stark wasn’t here at all, what if this was all some elaborate hoax and he was just wasting time when he could be helping his friends back at the Resistance base? Before he’d left, Clint was still unconscious from their fight with the Winter Soldier, and Sam was planning a daring raid on one of Hydra’s main capital ships. Steve could be doing good there, instead of chasing ghosts around the galaxy. He almost retreated to the  _Falcon_ , when he realized those thoughts were blue, had that same tinge of light around it that the warm spot of Stark had.

Steve pushed back until the alien thoughts left his head. He wasn’t thinking those thoughts, someone else was trying to influence him. He cast out his mind, and his eyes were drawn to a disturbance in the water.

Beneath the waves… a gold and red glitter of Tony Stark’s ship, the Iron Man.

“Ha, nice try, Stark,” Steve said, and the pushing stopped.

Steve started climbing.

There were a lot of stairs, really, just a ridiculous amount of them, and Steve found himself tapping into that core of strength inside him, that brilliant light that spilled all over and that had awoken when he first came across Sam on Jahku and joined his strength to the fight against Hydra. The Force.

Up and up and up some more.

Steve started to wonder if Stark was somehow building the steps as Steve was climbing and that he’d never actually get anywhere, just stuck in some endless nightmare of climbing.

Finally, he crested a ridge. Below him, on one side, were the ruins of a village and temple of some sort. To one side, a cliff, and a lone figure standing there, staring out to sea.

_Tony Stark._

Steve tried to speak, and couldn’t. He wasn’t sure if there was some oppression in the Force that kept him quiet, or if he was just out of breath. He walked closer. The figure waited until he was almost in touching distance before turning, wearing a cloak that twisted in the breeze.

He pushed the cowl off his head and stared at Steve, a nameless expression on that handsome, haggard face. Tony had dark hair, touched with gray, and a neat, styled beard. Dark eyes the color of soykaf and a symbartic mouth that turned down in a scowl.

Steve didn’t know what to say, so he reached for the lightsaber at his belt and offered it to the man.

Stark continued to stare. His mouth worked a few times as if to speak, and then he thought better of it.

“I bring a message from the Resistance, and from General Fury,” Steve said.

Stark held his hand out for the lightsaber and Steve gave it to him, gratefully. “Let me guess,” Stark said in a voice that sounded like he hadn’t spoken in the entire time he’d been on Ahch-to. “I’m their only hope?”

Steve blinked. “Something like that, yes.”

“Huh.”

Stark turned, looked out to sea, and threw the lightsaber as hard as he could toward the water. While Steve was gaping, rushing to the edge to see where it had fallen, Stark turned and walked away.

*** 

_Ahch-to, mid-afternoon_

There were about a million loth-cats on the damn island. Steve was tripping over them everywhere he went, fur and claws and whiskers. They didn’t seem to like him very much, either, gathering in mid-sized packs to watch him warily. They perched on trees and rocks, snuck peeks at him from the grass.

It was unnerving, like they were a hive mind and what one knew, they all knew.

The loth-cats seemed particularly fond of Stark, hissing at Steve if he got too close.

He wasn’t sure what to do. Stark hadn’t said a word since flinging the lightsaber off the cliff. He hadn’t answered any of Steve’s questions, hadn’t even told him to go away, which would have been  _something_ , at least. Instead, he’d gone on with his day as if Steve didn’t even exist. Steve had never been quite so thoroughly ignored in his entire life. And that was saying something.

Stark ignored Steve to such a degree of accuracy that Steve was tempted to leap in front of the man, just to see what would happen. He didn’t, because the areas where Stark was walking were steep mountain paths, narrow and covered in rocks. If Stark walked into him, they’d probably both fall. And if Stark could actually walk through him… well, Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to witness that.

“Look, General Fury sent me specifically to see you,” Steve tried again. “If I’m to report back, I would at least like to know why you’re refusing us.”

Stark finally whirled on him, outrage on every line of his face. “Tony Stark, not recommended,” he snapped.

“What, no, come on,” Steve pleaded his case, reaching out as if to grab the back of Stark’s robe. “Look, explain it to me.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“It’s Steve. Steve Rogers,” he said.

“Steve Rogers… from where?”

“Nowhere.”

“Everyone’s from somewhere,” Stark said.

“Um. Brooklyn.”

“Okay, I’ll give it to you, Brooklyn’s pretty close to nowhere. Tell me, Steve of Brooklyn,” Stark said. “Why are you really here? Not some mercy mission from Fury, but what… what do you want?”

There was a tingle there, a pull, and that blueish light that sometimes touched his sight… the words were compelled out of his chest. “I’m nobody,” he said. “But recently… something in here--” he tapped his chest. “--the things that happened, they woke something up inside me. It’s always been there, I think, but now it’s awake and aware, and I can do… things. Things I didn’t think were possible. I need someone to show me my place in all this.”

“Your place…”

Steve nodded. “I need someone to teach me the ways of the Force.”

Stark made a rumbling noise in his throat, disgust and apathy and discouragement all at the same time. “Your place… is somewhere far away.” And he stormed into a small building, slamming the door behind him.

Steve scowled, dropped his shoulder in preparation to charge the door.

“I… wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” a voice said. A familiar voice, as familiar to him as his own heartbeat.

“ _Bucky_?”


	2. Chapter 2

_First Order Command Ship, Supremacy - midafternoon_

_It was an honor to kneel before the Director._

The Winter Soldier had that thought before, but for the first time, it rang hollow. Not something that was true, but something that he’d once remembered to be true. Peeling below the layers, he wasn’t sure, anymore. Was it a memory?

_The man, I knew him._

He remembered… things. Things that used to be. He used to have a friend, he used to train with a master. He used to be… something else. Someone else.

 _"Barnes... the procedure has already started. You are to be the new Fist of Hydra!"_ At one time, there had been pain, more pain than should have existed in the world. A demon-creature that wasn’t one, but an alien, a master of the force, had grafted the arm, a gift, onto his body. And it was a gift.

_It was an honor, a great honor, to be the Fist of Hydra._

“You are far away, Soldier,” Director Pierce said from where he sat on the control chair. In truth, the chair controlled and directed the fleet of star destroyers and Hydra vessels. At one point that chair controlled the Planet Killer, but no more. The Planet Killer had been destroyed, but not before nearly wiping out the Resistance.

Pierce sat there like it was a throne. Like a king. Like an emperor. Like a petty little dictator trying to recapture the glory that had been the Red Skull, that had been the stretch of the old Empire. What had once been Hydra, and then became Shield, but was still Hydra, and after the battle of Triskelion and the end of Project Insight, was Hydra again. Declared its allegiance for what it was, threw off the mask that was Shield…

“I am thinking of the last of the Jedi, master,” the Winter Soldier said “I am thinking… about Tony Stark.”

“Tell me, why does your old master cross your mind? He is nothing to worry about, just a sad old man, alone on his island.”

 _I don’t think he’s alone, anymore._ The Winter Soldier thought it, but could not bring himself to say it. It didn’t matter, the Director would hear his thoughts, his feelings. The Director always had been able to do so. It was as inevitable as light into a black hole, as the spread of darkness over the galaxy. As the death of the Winter Soldier’s old friends, and his former master’s parents had been inevitable.

Fate, the Force, karma, kismet.

Call it whatever you wanted. There was no escaping it.

“Do you know what I think?” the Director asked. As if the Winter Soldier had a prayer of penetrating the Director’s mind and understanding it. The one time he had tried it, he had screaming nightmares for weeks. “I think you’re getting weak. Losing your purpose. When I found you, when I first saw you, I thought, this, this is power. This… this is strength. And look at you now. You’re not the Fist of Hydra. You’re a child in a mask. Take it off and face me.”

The Winter Soldier pulled off his goggles and his mask and set them aside. He’d never loved the mask, that much was true, but it was part of his identity, his shield, somehow and it protected him, kept him from feeling too much. “I’m strong,” he protested. “I’ve done everything that you asked. The Jedi are gone, the temples torn down. The Resistance is crumbling! You asked me to kill Howard Stark and I did not hesitate.”

“And it has torn you in half!” Pierce bellowed. “You may not have hesitated, but you are haunted by it. You feel… regret, remorse, confusion. You have lost your way. Your work has been a gift to the galaxy, to bring the order that is required. And I need you to do it one more time."

“I will,” the Winter Soldier protested. “I will, I can do it.”

“Good,” Director Pierce said. “Then let me give you… one… last… mission.”

“Ready to comply.”

“Find Rogers. Kill him, or bring him to face me. I don’t care. But the spark of the Jedi must be snuffed out.

***

_First Order Command Ship Supremacy - midafternoon_

“So, what did he have to say?” Rumlow demanded as the Winter Soldier left the throne room. It wasn’t called that, but that’s what it was. An aggrandized temple to the ego of the Director.

“I have a mission,” the Winter Soldier said.

“Yeah, you’re always goin’ out on missions, ain’t ya?” Rumlow walked along in the Winter Soldier’s wake.

As always, the Winter Soldier wondered what, exactly, the Director found useful about this man, this fanatical, stupid man. His most recent accomplishment was to fall for an old trick, engineered and delivered by a Resistance pilot named Falcon, who’d pretended to have a message from Director Fury of the Resistance. While Rumlow and Falcon bantered back and forth, Rumlow getting angrier and angrier, Falcon’s squadron moved in. While the Hydra fleet had eventually destroyed all of the bombers, the damage to one of the capital ships and several smaller, critical fleet support vessels, had been unparalleled. An astonishing failure, and yet, the Director had allowed this scum, this ignorant, annoying piece of garbage, to live.

“Did you want something, Commander?” the Winter Soldier demanded.

Rumlow grabbed the Winter Soldier’s arm -- the flesh one or he would already be dead. The Winter Soldier did not tolerate people touching the arm who weren’t maintenance, or tech workers. His fingers itched to close around Rumlow’s throat, and the man swallowed hard as the dark force swirled around him.

He let go.

Perhaps Rumlow was not altogether an idiot, but even the dumbest creature had some survival instincts.

“I’d prefer,” Rumlow spat, loosening his collar and breathing harder, “that you spend some of your precious resources finding that hidden Resistance fleet.”

“Don’t worry,” the Winter Soldier told him. “I should hear back, soon, from my spies.”

Rumlow scowled. “You have spies? Why is this the first I’ve heard about it?”

“Because you don’t listen?” The Winter Soldier felt the dark continuing to swirl; there was movement in the Force. He held a hand up, trying to silence Rumlow, to better hear what the dark was trying to tell him. “Go, leave me.”

“I ain’t finished--”

The Winter Soldier’s hand snapped open, directing the dark, and Rumlow was pushed back a dozen feet, two dozen, before colliding sharply with the wall. “ **GO** ,” the Winter Soldier roared.

There was something, in the dark.

Light, in the darkness.

Sunlight, on a fall of golden hair.

And then, he was there. The man from the forest. The man who had never held a lightsaber in his entire life until he wielded one against the Winter Soldier. And who had still beaten him with it, had nearly torn the artificial limb off, who’d sliced open the Winter Soldier’s face.

His reconstructive bandages itched. He was still healing from those wounds,  and there the man was.

On the Director’s flagship? Not possible.

The Winter Soldier reached, as if he could touch the man.

He couldn’t, and the man didn’t even seem to notice him. He was contemplating a door, thick with age. Soaked with the light side of the Force. It had a repulsion trigger on it. The Winter Soldier could practically hear it from where he stood. He was beginning to understand that the man was not on the Command ship, but somewhere else, some other planet, something far away.

The trigger -- he wrapped his mind around it.

_Tony Stark._

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he cautioned. The man probably couldn’t hear him; this was a vision, it was a--

_“Bucky?”_

Or, not.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t sure what this was.

“He doesn’t want to be bothered, right now.” Where the hell was the man -- who the hell was the man? Why did he feel so damned familiar, like his DNA was somehow irrevocably part of the Force that made up the Winter Soldier’s life?

“You can… you can see me?”

The Winter Soldier rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“I can see you, Bucky, but… you’re not here? I mean, are you here?”

“I am not,” the Winter Soldier said.  _Who the hell is Bucky?_ The Winter Soldier shifted, trying to move around the image of the man. It didn’t seem to matter. The man was right there, in front of the Winter Soldier. Changing his orientation didn’t change his perspective. The Winter Soldier prodded at the connection; ethereal and airy, and yet, strong as steel cables for all that. The Winter Soldier wasn’t sure he could break it.

Wasn’t sure he wanted to. “Who are you?”

“I’m Steve, don’t… don’t you remember me, pal? I’m your friend. We’ve known each other our whole lives.”

The Winter Soldier shook his head. “I… I’ve always been here. Raised in the Dark Temple.”

“No, no you haven’t, that was Pierce, he… seduced you somehow. Turned you to the Dark Side. Come on, pal, come back to me.”

Steve held out his hand, and the Winter Soldier reached for it --  _reached--_

The vision vanished, as instantly and completely as if it had never existed at all.

The Winter Soldier… should have felt relieved.

He didn’t.

He didn’t know what he felt.


	3. Chapter 3

_Ahch-to - midnight_

Tony Stark, the last of the Jedi order, shook himself awake. Even now, decades from his long-ago and wasted youth, the habit remained. He rose every day, across the galaxy, when the first of Tattooine’s binary suns would rise, shedding crimson light over the sands of the desert wastes.

 _I do not like Tatooine, but I do like_ saying _Tatooine._

Oh, Rhodey, old friend, how I do miss you, Tony thought. He opened the door to the small village hut that he’d chosen for himself. Rocks and stone, the door built from timber the likes of which his limited childhood imagination would never have believed.

He stepped over the boy -- well, man, really, but as guileless as a boy -- who was sleeping, curled up, near the sheltered side of the door. He was shivering, even in his sleep, and Tony viciously suppressed a twinge of sympathy. Hadn’t he, too, been cold, when he first left the sands of home.

And what was it, he wondered, about desert wastelands that they seemed to produce Jedi? Was it a lack of living things, so far between them that the natural habits of man to reach out, to connect, led to firmer, and stronger connections. So used to a lack of water, a lack of life, that once in the larger universe where such things were plentiful, they were powerful?

Bah. Power was useless.

Power was worse than useless. It was _dangerous_.

He pressed one hand against his arc-reactor.

_He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil._

“Yeah, and what does that make me?” Tony demanded of the empty air around him. Only the loth-cats were interested in the question, but they didn’t know the answer.

He trudged all the way down the stairs to the _Falcon_. Couldn’t Rogers from Nowhere have found a better place to land?

The ship was beautiful, lithe and streamlined and filthy and falling apart, the way it always was. Tony wondered if it had ever been new. He boarded. Nothing, seemingly, had changed. It had fallen into greater disrepair. Even the old Dejarik board was broken. The little monsters that had once had their reign of the concentric circles that made up the gameplay space, were gone.

Tony sat at the bench, feeling the old memories seeped in the duriplas and carbosteel. Little snippets of conversation.

How he had loved this ship.

How he had lived for this ship.

Once. Before he’d come to Ahch-to to die.

There was a faint scrape, wheel against metal.

DUM-E clattered into the lounge, a very old blender in his claw, the fire extinguisher resting against the base of his arm-platform. He made an inquisitive noise and sat the blender down in front of Tony.

“Old friend,” Tony said, running one hand down DUM-E’s support strut. “You’re holding up well.”

DUM-E clawed for the extinguisher.

“Aaaah, uh-uh-uh, yeah, no, buddy,” Tony said. “Nothing’s on fire, here.” There was no fire. There was no spark left in Tony. Nothing remained of that boy, the one who thought hope could fix anything.

DUM-E nudged the blender at him.

“Wish I could make you understand,” Tony said. “It’s all worthless. Good, evil, light, dark. Eventually, entropy takes over, and nothing orderly and good comes out of it. It’s over. The Jedi Order, the Republic, the Rebellion, it’s all just--”

DUM-E knocked the smoothie over into Tony’s lap.

“Cheap move, buddy,” Tony sighed. “It doesn’t matter what you do, or say. I’m staying here. There’s no hope left in the galaxy. There’s no point.” He knew that he was actively trying not to care, that he was forcing everything down in him that wanted to rise up, to help the galaxy. Innocent people would die by the billions with Pierce’s Hydra in charge.

But it was hard to know who to trust, it was hard to extend that hope again, just to watch it all crumble to ash.

DUM-E nudged him again. In his claw -- and the Force only knew where he’d gotten it from -- was the old arc-reactor. The one that Pepper had sealed in clear duriplas. _Proof that Tony Stark has a heart._

***

Steve woke with a start. He was cold, he was damp, and the ground was hard as stone under him. The ground _was_ stone, under him. He really should have gone back down to the Falcon to sleep.

“Get up. At dawn, you’ll get the first of three lessons and I’ll tell you why the Jedi Order should end. You deserve that much. Fury deserves that much.”

Tony stalked away, his robes swirling around him.

Steve scrambled to his feet, looking this way and that in the pre-light, silver grey and merciless. What had changed his mind?

“What… what about breakfast?”

“Do you cook?”

Steve shrugged. “A little,” he admitted. “I can make coffee.”

“You brought coffee with you?”

Steve nodded. “It’s back on the Falcon,” he said. “Do you--”

“Yes.” Tony slammed the door again, leaving Steve talking to the ancient wood. The loth-cat nearby made a purring, inquisitive noise, and _yow’ed_ a few times, like it was laughing at Steve.

“Oh, shut up,” Steve told it. It didn’t listen. It also didn’t go away. The cat followed Steve all the way down the stairs (dear suns and moons, why why why were there so many stairs?) and into the _Falcon_ , where Steve rummaged through the pods he’d brought.

DUM-E was cleaning the floor, a mop in his claw.

“Are you doing something useful?” Steve asked him. “Did you see him? Did Master Stark come down in the middle of the night to talk to you?”

DUM-E turned, whapped Steve over the head with the broom. Beeped.

_Stop asking stupid questions and get what you came for._

“Sacred island, bot,” Steve told him, rubbing his head. That stung. “Watch the language.”

If a bot could look condescending, DUM-E had managed it.

Steve packed the bag and headed back up the stairs. His asthma seemed to leap out of the mist and grass to see how he’d been doing without it, and he had to stop to dig through the bag for the medication the FX-7 had given him before he’d left the fleet. It worked, but like everything, left him dizzy and floaty feeling. And with the inevitable dread that this would not be the last time.

Climb finished, fire started, coffee made. Tony sipped from the mug with no evident delight, but the way his hands curled around the ceramics made Steve smile. Bucky had been like that, too. Hostile to daylight, until the rich liquid worked its way into his system. The smile faded as he remembered that there might be a reason for that. Bucky had been Tony’s student, once.

Before Pierce. Before Hydra.

“Tell me, Steve Rogers from nowhere,” Tony said, when his cup was empty. “What is it you know about the force?”

“Um,” Steve scrambled to get to his feet, to look competent, and eager. A worthy student. “It’s a power the Jedi have that… they can use to control people. And… make rocks float.”

“Wow,” Tony said, eyes widening as if he was impressed. “Every word you just said was wrong.”

Steve scowled. The sarcasm really wasn’t necessary.

“Okay, up here, sit down, close your eyes,” Tony said, patting an old and crumbling stone, covered with moss and bits of broken rock.

Steve obeyed with alacrity. At last! Someone to teach him… something. Anything. He hated being so confused and lost all the time, with everyone looking at him like they expected great things. He was just a kid from Brooklyn.

“Reach out--”

There was nothing, but Steve pushed his hand out into the air. Something tickled against the edge of his fingers. “Do you feel it?”

“Yes, yes, I feel--”

“That’s the Force, right there--”

“Really--”

Something sharp and thin slapped the back of his hand, like an angry teacher at school, scolding him for holding his pencil wrong. “No. Idiot.” There was Tony, hold a green reed and Steve, like the greenest of fools, had…

“Oh,” Steve said, embarrassed. “You mean reach other the other way.”

“With your feelings,” Tony said, eyes rolling.

“I’ll try again,” Steve said. Tony grabbed the hand that was still outstretched, pushed it onto the rock, fingers tented out.

“With your feelings, reach out. What do you see?”

Steve strained. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, right up until it _wasn’t_.

“The island.”

“And beyond the island?”

“The planet, the galaxy. Green and growing things. Life. Below it, death and decay. That in turn gives way for new life. Me. _Bucky_ … light. Darkness.”

“And between those things?”

“A… balance. An energy. A… a force.” Steve reached. The blackness that was Bucky, standing proud and tall, his hand outstretched to take everything-- “Darkness.”

“Fight it, Steve.”

“It’s calling me,” Steve protested. “Bucky’s calling me. He needs help--”

“The Winter Soldier is beyond help,” Tony said, bitterness cracking his tone. “He’s--”

“He needs me,” Steve insisted. He reached for Bucky, reached--

Darkness grabbed him with cold hands, pulling him down in the planet, promising him answers, ease to his pain, comfort. Home.

“STEVE!”

Steve opened his eyes with a gasp. The ground under him cracked with the strain, a sharp report like a blaster going off.

“The darkness in you,” Tony said, “calls to him. And you don’t even try to fight it.” Disgusted. “The Force isn’t a power the Jedi have. It’s arrogance to think the end of the Jedi would do anything to the Force. It’s just… there. Like gravity and light and inertia and entropy. It no more lifts the rock than a lever does. It’s a tool. And you’re a fool.”

Tony stormed off again and Steve didn’t even have the strength to chase after him.


	4. Chapter 4

_Ahch-to - mid-afternoon_

Steve wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, now. Master Stark wasn’t speaking to him again, and he was bored and restless.

He took up his weapon and did some practice. If nothing else, he needed to be better. He’d barely beaten back the Winter Soldier last time they’d squared off. While Master Stark might be unwilling to teach him the ways of the Force, Steve knew enough, felt it in his bones, that he would face the Winter Soldier again.

There were many places on the island that seemed designed for Force practice. Each was seeped with lore, deep in the soil and the rocks. Steve placed his feet just so, and seemed to hear voices telling him to move, just a bit, swing from the hips. A flash of children, learning there. The shape of the rock spoke of blows landed on the target.

The lightsaber called to him, and Steve didn’t bother to resist that call either. If Master Stark wanted him to learn control, he’d control the things around him.

He swung, listening to the high pitched buzz, the deep and deadly thrum of the weapon in his hand.

Steve loved it.

He wasn’t sure why, or how. The thing that had frightened him so much the first time he’d ever seen it seemed to become one with the end of his arm, seemed to be _his_. He practiced as the sun set over the water.

Finally, sweaty and exhausted, he turned to see Master Stark walking away. Had the Jedi been there the whole time? Steve couldn’t feel him with the Force, not the way he could feel everything else. Somehow, Master Stark had cut himself off from the Force, had sealed himself away.

Steve sighed and followed Master Stark up the hill.  (Honestly, what Steve wouldn’t give for a damn hoverbike around here?)

“Lesson two,” Master Stark said, as Steve approached, without even looking around. Stark’s cutting himself off from the Force hadn’t seemed to affect his ability to use it. “Now that they’re almost extinct, they’re romanticized, deified. If you strip away the legend, the few good deeds, and a really good catch-phrase, the legacy of the Jedi is failure, hubris. Hypocrisy.”

“That’s ridiculous, it’s not true,” Steve protested, but he was already doubting. What did he know of the Jedi? What did anyone know of the Jedi.

“It’s absolutely true,” Master Stark said. “At the height of their power, the Jedi allowed the Red Skull to rise, allowed Hydra to be formed, and everything resulted in the extreme sanction of the Jedi and most of their allies. _They failed_.”

“And you turned the tide,” Steve burst out. “Rebuilding, the futurist. Learning from our mistakes and moving on. Isn’t that the whole point?”

“Maybe,” Master Stark admitted. “The Avengers initiative, a handful of extraordinary people, to fight the battles that the rest of the galaxy never could. A grand idea, and like all grand ideas, doomed to failure as soon as real people got involved. As soon as the Winter Soldier got involved.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, my mistakes, I could count them for a decade and still never run out,” Master Stark said. “The Winter Soldier… he was… well, in those days, he was just Bucky Barnes. Earnest and strong, good arm, good eye. Good heart. I made the worst mistake. I fell in love.”

“What?” Steve’s voice went high and tight on him.

“Legendary Force Master,” Master Stark sneered, but it seemed he was sneering at himself more than Steve. “Too old to begin the training. The Jedi aren’t supposed to love, not individually. Not… not like I loved Bucky. He was beautiful, he was talented. He was funny, and sweet, and dedicated. I didn’t see the harm in it. We were in love. And because we were in love, I couldn’t kill him. And because I couldn’t do that… all of this. This happened. Because I was a fool. Because I didn’t know what I was doing and I thought I did. Because… because I didn’t try hard enough to be what the galaxy needed. Tony Stark, billionaire, genius, Jedi, playboy. Idiot. The whole galaxy is suffering because I had to play god.”

“What happened?”

Master Stark shook his head. “Pierce got to him, somehow. I don’t know. Tempted him. I sensed darkness in him, sometimes, while we were training. Anger. I thought it could be tempered. I was wrong. I went to confront him, had a vision. Terrible things, terrible things that he would do. By the time I said something, it was too late. He was already the Winter Soldier. My Bucky, my love, my life, he was gone. I didn’t know how to save him. He turned on me. Pulled the Temple down around my head. I guess he thought I was dead. Took a handful of my students, slaughtered the rest. Went to join Hydra.”

Stark sighed, sat down on the meditation platform. “I blamed Pierce, at first. Hydra. Everyone, except the one person who was at fault. Me. I failed him. I failed to protect him. I didn’t do enough, and he was vulnerable, and I let it go, because I loved him, and in the end, all I did was drive him away, let someone else turn him into a nightmare. The last time I saw him, he hated me. Hated everything that I was, everything I stood for. Everything we’d been together. The galaxy is where it is because I couldn’t do enough. I couldn’t love him enough to give him a reason to hold on.”

“He failed you,” Steve said, very gently. “But it’s not over. I can feel conflict in him. He wants to come home. He’s drawn to me, to you, to the Light.”

“That’s dangerously arrogant,” Master Stark said. “You think you can bring him back and all he’s doing is pulling you toward him. You see the closeness, how you’re standing near each other, and you fail to realize -- he’s the one with the knife.”

***

The Winter Soldier stepped out of the bath and wrapped a towel around his hips. “Is privacy not a thing for you?”

The boy, Steve, was there. “Believe me, I’d rather do this at another time.”

The Winter Soldier rolled his eyes and went on with his routine. He had wounds to think of, care to take. His arm vented a few times, letting water drain out onto the floor. The servos whined and twitched as the systems came back online.

“You’re not doing this,” the Winter Soldier said. “You’re not trained well enough, the effort would kill you. It would stop your heart to try to reach halfway across the galaxy, to what? Spy on me when I’m in the bath?” His mouth twitched, a little. Vaguely, he remembered. Gentle hands that cradled his skull, that sifted through his hair. _There you are, snowflake._ A fond voice. The Winter Soldier thrust it away, he wasn’t that man anymore. If he’d ever been that man to start with.

“I thought you were doing it,” Steve said. He held out one hand. “Why won’t you just come home and let us help you?”

“Us? Who is us?” the Winter Soldier demanded, gnashing his teeth together. Jealousy filled him; Steve was there, with _Tony_. They were _us_? “Did he tell you what happened? What he tried to do-- he tried to kill me. He doesn’t care about you, Steve. You should… you should go, before something happens to you.”

“No, no, Bucky. We’re trying to help you, we just--”

“Did he tell you what happened, that night?”

“Yes.”

The Winter Soldier reached, pulled at the connection between them. “No, he didn’t,” he said, finally. “He lied. Trying to protect himself, even now. The truth… depends on our point of view? Is that what he said? That we cling to ideas, reframed and represented… from a certain point of view?”

“He told me enough, he told me you tried to kill him, that you slaughtered your fellows at the Temple. He had a vision, he told me. Of what you would do.”

The Winter Soldier shook his head, let himself laugh. It wasn’t funny, it had never been funny.

“Of what he would drive me to do!” The Winter Soldier burst out. “He didn’t trust me! He came to me, full of rage, full of anger, full of fear! He saw that I would kill his parents, and he tried to stop it. He came to me, his lover, his friend, his beloved… with a weapon in hand, intent on murdering me in my sleep? What was I supposed to do? I fought back, because that’s what you do. You don’t ask why, when someone comes to kill you. _You fight back_.”

“You’re a liar.”

“And you’re clinging to ideals from the past,” the Winter Soldier said. “Let the past die. It’s over, it’s done. Kill it and put it out of its misery.”

Steve was weeping, and the Winter Soldier wanted to reach for him, to curl himself around that warm body, to find solace in love. He’d missed that, so much. Missed holding another person, caring about them. Having someone else who loved him.

“Let it go,” the Winter Soldier said, “and become what you are meant to be.”

_Mine._


	5. Chapter 5

_Ahch-to, midnight_

It must have been a dream, or a vision. It didn’t matter. Steve stood, facing the mirror of ice, far below the island, below the temple, in a place where the dark side of the Force was strong.

Dark side, what a ridiculous concept. The force between everything, the spaces in the middle, there wasn’t dark, or light, it wasn’t good, or bad. It was only what people chose to use it for. The lightsaber, the persuasion of the weak-minded, the lifting of objects, the repelling of missiles, all of those could be good, or bad. By itself, the force was nothing, had no moral compass.

“Show me what I came to see,” Steve told the ice, and it thawed, enough to see…

Himself.

No answers. No great message. No hope, no clarity.

“I thought I'd find answers here. I was wrong. I've never felt so alone.”

Steve was cold and wet and he wasn’t entirely sure how he got from the cavern under the temple to the fireside where he sat, staring at the flames.

“You’re not alone.”

The Winter Soldier -- dressed this time, at least, and Steve wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed -- looked up at him, as if they were sitting across from each other.

Steve knew that they weren’t. Knew that Bucky was hundreds of light years away, that if he reached for the man, Steve’s fingers would find only air. That he would disturb the very thing that was bringing them together in his efforts to reach through it. But he wanted that. Wanted to hold his friend, wanted comfort, to receive it.

To give it.

“Neither are you.”

Somewhere, under that mask of darkness -- not the physical mask, not the shiny black and metal helmet, but the mask of indifference -- Bucky peeked out. Smiled.

Steve put his hand down on the rock, only a few inches away from his side, and, almost as if he didn’t mean to do it at all, or if he didn’t notice, Bucky reached for him. Put his hand down right next to Steve’s. As if they could touch.

Only for a second.

Steve looked up at his friend and smiled, and when Bucky smiled back, Steve thought, maybe…

Maybe.

There was some hope. Some chance.

Bucky’s heart was not entirely lost, his soul not entirely corrupted. He could… they could… go home.

Have a home.

“It isn’t too late,” Steve said, and his heart ached. He reached, closer.

A single tear spilled over Bucky’s cheek and disappeared into the collar of his black cloak. With a curse, he tore the glove off his hand. “Steve--”

An eternal moment, and someone was calling his name who wasn’t Bucky, but it didn’t matter, because Bucky was reaching for him, Bucky needed him.

“To the end of the line,” Bucky said, and Steve reached.

Their fingers touched.

Warm.

Solid.

Real.

Spanning light years and time, planets and space, hearts and home, they _touched_.

Someone was calling him, and then the world exploded, or so it seemed.

He went from warm and drying, holding hands with his best friend, with his love, with his life, to soaking wet as the building disintegrated. Wind howled around him and he was cold, straight through.

“Stop it!” Tony was saying, hand outstretched.

Steve whirled, but Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

“Is it true?” Steve blurted. “Did you try to murder him?”

Tony scoffed, disgusted. “You should leave. There’s no place for you here.” He whirled and stamped away, shoulders held stiff with anger, or as if expecting a blow.

“Stop!” Steve screamed.

Tony kept walking away, like everyone in Steve’s life had walked away. He held out a hand and his staff came winging to him, summoned by Steve’s tenuous hold on the force. Always, it worked so much better when he was angry, or scared.

“Did you do it, did you try to kill him, did you create the Winter Soldier?”

Steve was furious, livid. He raised his staff to strike, and Tony reached, twisted, the Force answered him with alacrity. A broken bit of communications antenna snapped off and whirled, coming to his hand just in time to block Steve’s blow.

They fought, and Tony was better, so much better. Steve could feel him pulling his blows, just defending, refusing to _fight back_ , refusing to _answer_ , refusing to give him direction.

Tony growled, grabbed the staff out of Steve’s hands and threw it aside. “Stop it,” he snapped. Chiding him, like Steve was an infant throwing a temper tantrum. “This is pointless.”

Steve reached again, summoned the lightsaber that had once been Tony’s. It ignited on its way to him, casting holy blue flames everywhere. Something deep in Tony answered that call, and a flicker of light, the same blue, from his chest.

“Tell me the truth,” Steve demanded.

Tony staggered backward, one hand going over his heart, to protect that blue glow from Steve’s wrath. The other one grabbed the living force around him, swirled it, used it to cushion his fall. Tony hovered there for a moment, above the stones, then sat down, hard.

“I did,” Tony said. “I looked inside him, and I saw darkness. He was already on the path to becoming what he is now. I saw everything that would happen, everything that he would become, and I thought… what cost, one life, to save so many? I thought I could stop it. At the cost of one life; his. At the cost of one soul; mine.”

Tony looked up at him, weary. Heartbroken. His handsome face etched with regret. “It passed. I knew I could never hurt him. Knew that I loved him too much. I was left with shame. And consequence. Bucky… he’d seen, he knew, but he didn’t understand. The last thing I saw, before he pulled the building down on me, was the angry, terrified, broken expression of a man whose lover had betrayed him.”

“You betrayed him,” Steve said. “You thought his choice was already made, and when you decided that, when you--”

“I made his choice for him.” Tony was wet, soaked with rain. Tears. “I didn’t leave him anywhere to go, so he took the only path open to him. Hydra.”

“It’s not over, even now,” Steve said, panting for breath, aching for the broken ties between them. “He’s conflicted. I can bring him back.”

“You can’t,” Tony said. “And even if you could, even if you do. Don’t bring him here. I… if he’s going to start over, he needs to start over, with someone who loves him, someone who sees what’s there, not someone who was blinded by his own fear, his own hubris. I don’t think it’ll work, I think I’ll lose you both. But… what do I know? I’m just a failure. I failed him. I failed myself, the galaxy, and the only people I will ever love.”

“I’m going to bring him home.”

Tony scrambled to his feet, but when Steve offered him the lightsaber, a silent plea _Come with me, you can bring him home, he still loves you, he still wants you, as much, or more than he wants me. He needs you_ Tony turned away.

“Then Bucky is our last hope for peace, and I’m going to go get him.”

Tony watched him walk away, but didn’t try to stop him.

***

“JARVIS, look after the _Falcon_ for me,” Steve said. He climbed into the life pod, plotted a course. There was no point in letting the ship fall into enemy hands. Steve could save Bucky, could count on Bucky, but he wasn’t an idiot. There were more enemies than friends on the Hydra fleet.

“As you say, Captain,” JARVIS replied. DUM-E made some noises, disapproving ones. Master Stark was supposed to be on the ship, those sounds seemed to say. Steve had failed in his mission to bring Tony back to the Resistance.

_The greatest teacher, failure is._

Steve wasn’t sure who said that; a voice, a whisper, a bit of the Force.

He slid into the pod and was away. Closed his eyes, became one with the force around him. Not using it for anything, just absorbing it. Learning. Listening.

When he opened his eyes again, Bucky was opening the pod. Steve sat up, wrapped his arms around Bucky’s neck. “Oh, thank the Force,” he said, and then Bucky’s mouth was on his, kissing him. Loving him.

Steve returned the kiss with everything he had, every scrap of hope inside him. “Bucky.”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

The Winter Soldier stepped back and two Hydra goons were there.

With handcuffs.

***

“You don’t have to do this, Bucky,” Steve said, although it was like talking to a wall. Everything he’d seen before was gone, cloudy. Indistinct. He’d seen, with such certainty, like a picture of everything that was to come, that Bucky would kiss him, and then they’d leave.

He’d never seen being brought before Pierce.

“You can break free from Hydra. You can find a place with me, a better place than this, Bucky, is this what you want? I feel the conflict in you. You’re my friend.”

“You’re my mission,” the Winter Soldier said. “You’ve come to me, just like I wanted, and we’ll stand together. You’ll stand _with me_.”


	6. Chapter 6

****

The control room was horrifically, overwhelmingly green. It was like being submerged in poison; the huge Hydra logo on the back wall like aggressive advertising.

Steve choked, staggered forward as the Winter Soldier pushed him into the room.

The room was designed to make a petitioner feel small. The Winter Soldier didn’t feel small at the moment. He was confident, convinced. His master’s approval wrapped around him like a blanket.

“Well done, my apprentice,” Pierce said as they walked forward. “My faith in you is restored.”

The Winter Soldier approached no closer than necessary, barely enough to read the tension in Director Pierce’s face. He knelt, obedient. Humble. He took one long look at his master’s face and then turned his gaze to the floor. To Steve’s bootheels and the way he was reflected in the shiny tiles that made up the control room. To the bit of Steve’s face that the Winter Soldier could see, like a dark mirror. He opened his mind and let go of all his feelings.

Steve did not do the same.

Steve’s feelings were like a patina in the air. Fear, rage, disgust, hope, love, all mixed and swirled around him like a cloud.

“And young Steve Rogers,” Pierce said, spreading his hands and then folding them together. “Welcome.” He gestured and the Winter Soldier felt the surge in the force, much too powerful for what Pierce was doing. The cuffs opened and fell to the floor with a ringing clang. Too loud, too dramatic.

_Show off._

Pierce flicked his eyes in the Winter Soldier’s direction, but didn’t say anything. And infractions would be dealt with later, the Winter Soldier knew that. Not in front of the Jedi apprentice.

 _Steve_.

The Winter Soldier inhaled, exhaled. Cleared his mind. Drifted with the Force.

“Come closer,” Pierce beckoned. “Such strength, you have. Determination. What makes you so special?”

“Nothing,” Steve answered, his feet planted as if he was a tree by the river. “I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.”

Pierce gestured again, the lightsaber that had once belonged to Tony Stark flew from the Winter Soldier’s hand and landed on the arm of Pierce’s chair, drawn as if by a magnet. For a moment, the Winter Soldier wanted to lunge for it, that tactile reminder of his old master, his old friend.

_His lover._

The Winter Soldier had never taken another.

“I thought it would be Stark, who rose to face the Winter Soldier, as he grew in power,” Pierce said. “But Stark is weak. Broken. Too weighed down with regrets to do what must be done.”

Regrets? What did Tony regret?

“Closer, I said,” Pierce ordered. It was a purr, seductive and cajoling, but the Winter Soldier knew it for what it was. The Force wrapped around Steve and dragged him forward, hands tight in fists at his sides. Through the connection, the Winter Soldier sensed fingernails biting into palms, the increase in heartrate, the sweat gathering at the nape of the neck.

“You underestimate Tony Stark,” Steve said. The Winter Soldier raised his chin a moment -- where had this loyalty to Stark come from, suddenly? Did Steve know something, had Steve seen something with Stark.

A momentary flash of those dark brown eyes, the way his whole face turned sunny and joyous when he smiled, the feel of warm breath against his throat.

_Stark threw you away like trash._

 And you killed his parents in revenge. And he already knew you would do it. There’s no going back, not from that. There’s no forgiveness, not for me.

He strengthened his resolve. He would do what was right. He was sure. He was unwavering.

“You underestimate Bucky Barnes, and you know nothing of me!” Steve was defiant, heart blazing with the purity of his belief.

Pierce threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, young fools, so quick to believe in the power of love, of the light. You think I know nothing? Have you seen something? Something that makes you believe your _Bucky Barnes_ might love you. Might still care for Stark? You saw only what I wanted you to see. It was I, I who released some of my hold over my young apprentice, let him remember the man he once was, let him feel the things he once felt, because I knew he was not strong enough to hide it from you. And I knew you were too weak to resist the bait.”

The Winter Soldier didn’t look up. He turned the words over in his mind. Pierce had let him feel? _Let him?_ Let him remember? Letting someone do a thing implied control over a thing.

It was an _honor_ to kneel at the feet of the Director. His thoughts corrected themselves again and he stared at the floor, not letting himself think.

“And now, it is all over, child of the Jedi,” Pierce said. “You are here. My apprentice is returned to his rightful place at my feet. You will give me Stark, tell me where to find him, and then I will kill you with the cruelest stroke.”

Pierce cupped his hand against Steve’s face and Steve flinched away. Just barely, just enough for the Winter Soldier to see how Pierce disgusted him. “No. I won’t.”

The force wrapped around Steve, threw him into the air, and Pierce’s intensity swirled until all his thoughts were tied up around the young Jedi. _Pain._ “You will give me everything.”

The Winter Soldier couldn’t help but look up as Pierce spread his hand, crushing every cell and fiber in Steve’s body, tearing at his mind with cruel, sharp talons, no less painful for all that they only existed in the imagination.

Steve screamed.

“How amusing,” Pierce said, plucking the thoughts from Steve’s head like low-hanging fruit. “Stark has given up already. He wishes to die, wishes for his misery to end. How delightful. When I have destroyed this pathetic Resistance, I shall go to his planet and I shall obliterate him!”

Pierce dropped Steve to the ground in disgust. “Too easy.”

Steve was on his feet, hand outstretched. “Hate to step on your moment,” he said, yanking the lightsaber across the room. The Winter Soldier could have told him that was no use; Pierce had his mind open to the Force all the time. He could not be taken by surprise. He would sense it, the instant that someone called for the Force, the moment that their minds were open to the way the Force moved, all that it did, everything that it controlled.

Pierce already knew everything. There was no use trying to hide it.

Pierce didn’t even bother to gesture. Only the weakest force users needed a catalyst to control the force. The lightsaber whirled out of grasp, spun around and struck Steve in the back of the head. He went down on his knees.

There was an obscure pain there, seeing Steve on his knees.

“It is over, Rogers,” Pierce said. “In moments, the Resistance will all be dead. Rumlow is stamping them out like bugs as we speak. All is lost. There is no hope.”

Steve gestured again, grabbed the Winter Soldier’s lightsaber with its cracked kyber crystal that he’d wept over, that he’d bled for. It ignited with its song of madness. The Winter Soldier managed a twitch of his mouth at that point. Hope flared and he’d been so open, so long, listening to the force, feeling it, that he wasn’t sure whose hope it was, anymore. Was it Steve? Himself? Pierce?

No, not Pierce. Pierce didn’t have hope. Hope was a thing for fools without conviction.

Steve attacked and again Pierce threw him aside like a toy.

“Still that little spark of hope,” Pierce said. “Pathetic. Weak. Hope is a tool for idiots without conviction. For that, you are worthless. For that, you will die.” Pierce forced Steve back to his knees, turned him to face the Winter Soldier.

“Go on, my young apprentice, Fist of Hydra. Where I once sensed in you doubt, I feel resolve. Once confusion, I feel only surety. Complete your training. Fulfill your destiny.”

The Winter Soldier had been open to the Force the whole time. There was nothing to hide from Pierce. He stood, taking up his lightsaber. “I know what I have to do,” he said, and there was nothing in him anymore. No emotion.

“Bucky,” Steve begged. “Please, don’t make me do this.”

“You think you can turn him? Pathetic child. I cannot be betrayed; I cannot be beaten. I see his mind, I see his every intent. Yes. I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true. And now, foolish child, he ignites it, and kills his true enemy!”

Bucky couldn’t help it, he had to move his hand just a little.

Concentrated on what he was about to do; turn the lightsaber on.

_Kill his true enemy._

On the throne, Tony Stark’s lightsaber whirled ninety degrees. Ignited.

And stabbed Pierce through the heart.

He died.

It was almost anticlimactic, really.


	7. Chapter 7

****There was no time to think, only fight.

Tony Stark’s old lightsaber came spinning to Steve’s hand. For an instant, Bucky’s face was bathed in the blue glow and he was the most beautiful thing that Steve had ever seen, and Steve loved him, loved him always. Would always love him.

Bucky raised his own saber, that deep, dripping red, that crackled and hissed and spat with the sound of its cracked crystal.

“To the end of the line,” Bucky said, and they whirled, back to back, two against the universe as they always were.

The Hydra high guard came for them, saberaxes at the ready. There were dozens, against two, and they were the elite, the best of the best. Force resistant, and with weapons that could best the Jedi.

“I could do this all day,” Steve declared, and Bucky threw him a startled look before a shy smile touched his lips.

And then they were in the thick of it, whirling and fighting for their very lives.

But their souls. Bucky’s soul.

Steve was so happy he could have shouted it from the mountaintops. Fear couldn’t touch him, not when he and Bucky were together. Death couldn’t grab so much as a handhold. They were unstoppable.

Unbeatable.

Together.

***

The Winter Soldier fought wildly, three or four against one, kicking them back, using the force to enhance his strength, diverting the flow of it from the high guard, which caused their blood to flow faster, stole it for his own.

They were good. They were very good.

The Winter Soldier was struggling, with the death of his master, with fear -- for himself, for Steve, for the consequences of his actions. The fear hampered him and strengthened him at the same time. _Anger, fear, ambition, these things, the they flow from the dark side._

Look at how he fights.

The Winter Soldier threw a glance over his shoulder at Steve’s scream; one of the guards had broken his weapon into two blades, was attacking in a wild swinging stance. Steve’s robes were cut, he was bleeding from one shoulder and the other had a nasty burn.

Bucky could feel the pain, radiating outward, through the link they shared. He could feel Steve’s pain, and the wild elation underneath.

And underneath that?

Love.

Love so strong, faith so great, that Bucky almost staggered. The guard ripped Bucky’s lightsaber out of his hands, threw it aside.

Somewhere, in the waves of the force, Bucky could hear Pierce laughing. _You think you escape so easily, my young apprentice. But you will never be free. You will always. Serve. Me._

He was gripped, turned. One arm went around his throat, strangling him. He caught the guard’s weapon hand, kept the saberstaff from cutting his head from his neck, but he was weakening. He was lost.

Steve was struggling.

Was it all for nothing? Did he split himself in half for nothing?

Steve screamed, then dropped his lightsaber. He dropped to the floor, grabbed it, reignited it, and cut the legs off of the guard in front of him, using a force push to send the body spinning away.

“Bucky!” He yelled. Threw Tony’s lightsaber at him. It whirled and sound and Bucky caught it. He thumbed the switch and drove Tony’s blade straight into the eye of the guard behind him, killing him instantly.

It was over. They’d won.

The throne room was in wreckage, half on fire, half destroyed. The smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils and Bucky had a moment to long for his mask that would filter the foul scent.

For a long moment, Steve just stared at him.

And then Steve was in his arms, where Bucky always wanted, always needed him to be, and their mouths crashed together in a desperate, longing kiss.

“Bucky, Bucky,” Steve was saying, petting his hair, touching his face. Then he gasped. “Hydra, you have to order them to stand down. We have to save the Resistance.”

Bucky didn’t answer him. He walked over to Pierce’s throne and stared at the murdered remains of his master. He’d put all his hopes in Pierce, let Pierce take the confusion and pain away from him. He’d served Pierce faithfully.

For a while.

Bucky’s world spun aimlessly, first one way, then the other. What had he done? If he joined the Resistance, would he have to face everything he’d done, as the Winter Soldier. Apologize to Tony. Accept forgiveness. And blame. And the guilt that was already seeping around the edges.

What had he done?

And if he stayed, did as the Sith always did, rise to take his Master’s place… could he live with that, instead?

He saw one glimmer. One path. One way through it that he might be able to survive with his soul intact.

“It's time to let old things die. Pierce. Stark. The Sith. The Jedi. The Rebels. Hydra. Let it all die. I want you to join me. We can start over. No Hydra. No Resistance. Just you. And me.”

Steve just stared at him. “People are gonna die, Buck. You know I can’t let that happen. Please--” he started to tear up. “--don’t make me do this.”

“No, no. You're still...holding on! Let go! Do you want to know the truth about your parents, or have you always known? You've just hidden it away. You know the truth. Say it.” Steve was crying, openly weeping. Bucky was reaching him. He was showing Steve the only way, the only way through. There was no forgiveness for the Winter Soldier, there was no light for Bucky Barnes. There was only the one path. Together to the end of the line. “Say it.”

Steve wiped his face. “They were nobody. My father was a drunk, my mother dying.”

“They were filthy junk traders; sold you for drinking money and medicine. They're dead in a pauper's grave in the Brooklyn desert. You have no place in this story; you come from nothing. You're nothing. But not to me. Join me.” Bucky reached for him. “Come with me. Please…”

“Bucky, I can’t,” Steve protested, even as he was crying, even has his heart was breaking. Even as the last bit of his hope swirled and cried out and died. “I can’t do that.”

“You’re my only hope!” Bucky screamed, furious, angry. How could Steve reject him like this? Hadn’t Bucky given up everything? Everything, the Force, the Sith, the Jedi, Tony. They’d taken everything from him, and now, even Steve was going to turn away from him.

“I won’t fight you,” Steve said, and he clipped Tony’s lightsaber to his belt. “You’re my friend. And if you won’t come with me, you need to let me go.”

“You’re my mission!”

“Then finish it.”

Bucky used the force to snatch Tony’s lightsaber. Steve fought him. Their power held the saber between them, each no stronger than the other. An unmovable object and an unstoppable force.

The saber cracked between them

And the world exploded.

***  
  


In the end, it was the battle itself that stopped them. Bucky had forgotten, truly, about the Resistance, about Hydra, about the ships.

When Rumlow found him, screaming and furious and relentless and full of grief for Pierce, Bucky got the story, in scattered, tearful bursts. One of the Resistance Cruisers had committed the ultimate sin in space travel; they’d turned the ship toward Hydra’s fleet and entered light speed. Right through the fleet.

The main battleship was torn in half. Most of the fleet was destroyed in the resulting explosion. Those that were left were stunned and leaderless.

Steve was gone. Stole Pierce’s shuttle and escaped. No matter. Bucky knew where he was going.

Bucky was drawn to the planet. He knew, knew in his heart, in his soul, where Steve had gone. And another spot of light, brilliant and glittering and golden, was singing to him.

_You can come home._

Bucky was exhausted. All he wanted was to crawl to someone, anyone, and lay his head in a warm lap. Have someone brush their fingers through his hair. That was all. Really. Was it so much to ask?

“We should go to the planet,” Bucky said, not even knowing what he was saying. “Finish this.” Finish me. Let him lay down and die with the people he loved. Let all old things die.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Rumlow screamed. “There’s an order to things, an order in Hydra. And we have no leader, we have no orders, you’re--”

Bucky didn’t have time for this. He didn’t even have to gesture. Rumlow was choking, air cut off, his bones cracking and breaking as he fell to the floor.

“The Supreme Leader is dead,” Bucky said.

“Hail Hydra,” Rumlow managed to choke out. “Long live the Supreme Leader.”

Bucky dropped him. He would go to the planet on his own if he had to. He would go where he was called.


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky was in the cockpit of the lead walker. Rumlow behind him, casting dark looks at him. He would have to watch that one carefully. Rumlow meant to murder him. Hatred seethed off him with every breath. He was weak, stupid, greedy. But that didn’t mean Rumlow wasn’t dangerous.

They pushed the line, all the way to the blast doors.

And then a swoop of gold and red, beautiful against the ice-white of the planet’s salt flats, landed, the superhero landing, smashing the salt away from him, making a rim of red.

The Iron Man.

Tony Stark.

“All fire, all fire, all fire,” Bucky chanted, suddenly terrified. He could read Tony’s resolve, taste it in the air.

_I’ve come to face you. And I can’t save you._

Grief, bitterness, despair colored Tony’s emotions.

All the walkers, all the foot soldiers, all of them, they opened fire on Tony, creating a cloud of smoke and lasers and melting, steaming salt. Bucky couldn’t see, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move.

_Tony! Tony, no!_

_You’re still my servant, apprentice. You’re still under my orders. You think you’ve won anything? You will destroy him. You will snuff out all hope in the galaxy and you will rule, but you will do so at my bidding, at my will. You are nothing but a puppet. An Asset and I will use you as you were meant to be used._

“Oh, stop it,” Rumlow snapped. “I think we got him.”

The smoke cleared, slow and implacable.

And the Iron Man armor walked out, eyeslits glowing. The armor wasn’t even damaged. Tony looked up, directly where Bucky was, met his gaze across a hundred meters and a dozen years and a thousand lifetimes. And brushed off his shoulder, absently, flicking a bit of dirt away.

There was a desperate, dangerous part of Bucky that wanted to cheer.

“Send me down to him,” Bucky said.

“Supreme Leader,” Rumlow said, grabbing Bucky’s shoulder. “Don’t get distracted, this is--”

Bucky threw him across the small cockpit without even a thought.

“Right away, sir,” the pilot said.

***

Tony didn’t move, he just waited. When Bucky was within a few meters, he popped the face plate up.

“Did you come back to say you forgive me? To save my soul?” Bucky sneered. Tony was so beautiful. And so sad. Pain and heartache and regret surrounded him like a cloud.

“I did not,” Tony said. Resolve crystallized. “I can’t save you. And I can’t forgive you.”

***

“The Resistance survivors. They’re right under us,” Steve burst out. He’d summoned the Falcon as soon as he’d left the wreckage of the Hydra cruiser, dropped to the planet, hoping to help, but he couldn’t find them. He flew over the crystal mountains. He could feel his friends, he could feel…

Bucky.

Bucky was here.

And then…

 _Tony._  Tony was here.

Tony?

The rockslide blocked his way. He could feel them, Sam and Clint and the others, just beyond a wall of rock and dust and ash.

_Everything you just said was wrong._

Lifting rock. Hah. Steve felt a fond smile touch his lips.

***

They were fighting, Bucky and Tony. A new saber, brilliant white, that sang in the morning air.

Tony was good. So, so much better than Bucky had ever seen, quick and lithe and poetry.

“I can’t forgive you,” Tony said. “Because the failure was mine. I’m sorry.”

“I bet you are. Sorry you’re losing, sorry the war is over, sorry the Jedi order is done.”

“Amazing,” Tony said. “Everything you just said was wrong. I’m not losing. The war is just beginning. And I… am not the last Jedi. I can’t save your soul, Bucky.”

Bucky keened in anguish at the sound of his name. “I loved you,” he burst out, not caring who heard or who saw.

***

Steve barely even had to try; the rocks flew to do his bidding, and the last of the Resistance poured out of the hole.

Sam hugged him, hard, and Clint was there, laughing.

“Get aboard,” Steve said, gesturing to the Falcon.

The Force shivered in the air and the rocks floated to the ground like feathers. And Steve clutched at his chest, suddenly aching with pain.

“Where’s Tony?”

“Holding off the Winter Soldier so we could escape.”

“I need to help him,” Steve said.

“You’ll die. Tony is going to die,” Sam exclaimed. “He’s too strong.”

“Then we’ll do it together,” Steve said.

***

“I can’t save you,” Tony said, he was pleading with Bucky. “You have to do it yourself.”

“I can kill you,” Bucky spat. He struggled, Pierce was still with him, the weight of his guilt pressing him down, the burden of everything that he was, of everything he’d done. “You can kill me.” Maybe that would even be preferable. Just close his eyes and never open them.

“Even if you kill me,” Tony said. “I’ll always be with you.  _Always_. It doesn’t have to end in a fight.”

Bucky lowered his lightsaber. Behind him, he could feel Rumlow’s hatred. Could hear the orders being given. He would give everything to Tony, and Rumlow would kill him for it.

And that was good. That was right.

He took a breath, and it was like he could fill his lungs for the first time.

Bands, snapping around his heart, that set him free.

“It always ends in a fight.” He dropped his lightsaber and reached for his lover. “Tony. Tony, I’m sorry.”

“We’re going to talk about this,” Tony promised. “But for right now, I suggest you… RUN.”

And then they were running, Hydra firing at them. Tony took a few steps, leapt into the air, repulsors firing up, and then he grabbed Bucky’s hand. “Hang on! I got you--”

“Where--”

Tony caught him, pulled him in, and even through the metal suit of armor, Bucky could swear he heart Tony’s heart beating. He tucked his ear against the chest plate. He could die now, happy, and safe, and at peace.

“We’re not dying today,” Tony told him.

And there was the  _Falcon_ , resting neatly on the mountain, and Steve at the ramp, waiting.

“How do we start over?” Bucky asked. “Build a rebellion from this? Stop the First Order?”

Steve pulled him up the ramp and into the light, Tony was behind him, his hand on the small of Bucky’s back.

And there was love.

And forgiveness.

And compassion and understanding.

And hope.

“We have all that we need, right here,” Tony said. And he kissed Bucky’s mouth, light and firm and perfect.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by [Grave Secret](https://gravesecret.tumblr.com/) for the 2018 Cap RBB


End file.
